Summary: The Marine Corps is trying to reform, again. After 9/11 they had an opportunity to become great but refused. Now they are on a dead-end path. As America’s institutions fall like dominoes, each will face a similar difficult choice. Their leaders’ choices will determine if who has a good future. (This is an expansion and update of a post from 2013.)
The Marine Corps, like most of America’s institutions, is suffering from senescence – unable to adapt to a changing world. Here is a story of the Corps’ attempts to modernize. It is a typical story in 21st century America.
The US Marine Corps, like the Army, remains mired in first-generation (WWI era) personnel management and military operations. A group of junior officers wrote the Attritionist Letters, published anonymously in the Marine Corps Gazette, describing the horror of life in an organization devoted to obsolete methods. Also see Generals read “Ender’s Game” and see their vision of the future Marine Corps.
William Lind has long followed the USMC’s attempts to modernize its methods. He explains the Marine Corps’ strategic problem, which they hope to solve by becoming better than the US Army.
“Since sometime before Caesar was a lance corporal, the United States Marine Corps’ greatest fear has been becoming “a second land army.” It has long believed that if the country perceived it had two armies, it would require one to go away, and that one would be the Marine Corps.”
In this article with Daniel R Grazier (Captain, USMC) at the Marine Corps Gazette, he describes one of the Corps’ attempts to modernize.
“In the early 1990s, the United States Marine Corps officially adopted maneuver warfare, also known as Third Generation War, as doctrine, in a movement led by then-Commandant Gen Alfred M. Gray. The Corps issued a set of excellent doctrinal manuals …. With Gen Gray’s retirement, that is where the effort largely stopped. …
“Attempts to move forward since that time, such as the Jaeger air experiments sponsored by Gen Charles C. Krulak when he was Commandant, began with promise, but received no long-term support. {E.g., see this article.} …
“I recently encountered a horrifying example of {this failure} at the Marine Corps Command & Staff School at Quantico. At the end of this academic year {2004}, the Command & Staff faculty simply got rid of 250 copies of Martin van Creveld’s superb book, Fighting Power
“When I asked someone associated with Command & Staff how such a thing could be done, he replied that the faculty has decided it “doesn’t like” van Creveld. This is similar to a band of Hottentots deciding they “don’t like” Queen Victoria. Martin van Creveld is perhaps the most perceptive military historian now writing. But in the end, the books went; future generations of students at Command & Staff won’t have them.”
Now the Marines are trying again: “New Marine Corps Operating Concept Emphasizes Maneuver Warfare” in the US Naval Institute News, September 2016. Third times the charm! In his June 16 column, Lind gives the good news.
“The indications that the new Marine Corps Commandant intends to get serious about maneuver warfare are proliferating. Serious plans for genuinely free play training are being made. The latest issue of the Marine Corps Gazette is mostly devoted to the history of the maneuver warfare movement that culminated with the Corps formally adopting the concept as doctrine under Commandant General Al Gray. Training and Education Command at Quantico is talking about maneuver warfare.”
The Marines are preparing to re-fight WWII. But the past 70 years shows that the US Army adequately deters conventional warfare by great powers and aspiring regional titans. A better USMC would be nice to have, but it is not essential. Meanwhile, America is fighting fourth-generation wars that require a new kind of elite soldiers.
A missed opportunity for the Marines
The Marines had an opportunity for greatness in the 21st century, as Lloyd Freeman describes in “Can the Marines Survive?” in Foreign Policy, March 2013. Freeman is a foreign service officer and retired Lt. Colonel in the USMC. He served two combat tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.
“Following the 9/11 attacks, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approached the Marine commandant and asked if the Marines could take on a special operations role within the Department of Defense.
“For the secretary, it seemed logical. The Marine Corps is designed to operate independently when necessary; it can sustain itself with a well-oiled logistics organization, and it even has its own air wings. At the time, most special operations forces resided in the Army and in Navy Special Warfare and there was an emerging shortage of operators. The Corps could have filled the gap in special forces that existed right after 9/11.”
Instead of taking this bold path to the future, the USMC continued its quest to become a second Army, putting their investment capital in projects such as the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) and the VTOL version of the F-35. The Marines canceled the EFV; the F-35 limps forward with costs skyrocketing and inferior performance (see “Marine F-35 Jump-Jet PR: Caveataxpayer Emptor“).
That those failed programs burnt much of the Marines R&D funding is less important for its future than their loss of the “elite ground forces” niche in the minds of the American public. The Special Operations Command accepted the challenge that the Marines declined. Now they make the headlines. This bumps the USMC decisively into the “second Army” niche. Their numbers have increased from 33 thousand before 9/11 to over 72 thousand now.
When budgets get cut, as they eventually will, the Marines will get cut hardest. Can the USMC recover from this? It will take more creativity and insight than USMC’s leadership has shown so far.
Destiny offered the Marines – and America – two choices.
After WWII, America led the creation of a new world order based on laws and the maintenance of order. It worked for fifty years. We were a hegemonic power unlike any the world has seen. It was the dawn of a new world
We faced a choice after 9/11. We could have pursued Al Qaeda for “Offenses against the Law of Nations” under Article One, Section 8 of the Constitution (details here). The world would have followed our lead. America would have stayed on course for a great future. Instead Bush used 9/11 as an excuse to implement his mad dreams of making America a neo-colonial power in the Middle East by invading and occupying Iraq and Afghanistan. Since then we have systematically dismantled the arms control treaties that have kept the world from burning for 55 years (details here and here).
It is probably too late for the Marines to reform. It might not yet be too late for America.
“The Road Less Traveled” by Robert Frost (1929)
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
This series about military reform
- “It only takes the right leader” by the late David H. Hackworth (Colonel, US Army), July 2001.
- “Fire the Generals!“ by Douglas A. Macgregor (Colonel, US Army, retired), April 2007.
- “A Failure in Generalship“ by Paul Yingling (Lieutenant Colonel, US Army) in the Armed Forces Journal, May 2007.
- Powerful and insightful: “The U.S. military’s marathon, 30-year, single-elimination, suck-up tournament” aka “How America selects its generals” – by John T. Reed (Captain, US Army, retired). He earned the Ranger tab and served in Vietnam.
- “A Manœuvre Renaissance: Overcoming the attritionist tendency“ by Daniel R. Grazier (Captain, USMC) in the Marine Corps Gazette, June 2015.
- Overhauling The Officer Corps to build a military that can win wars – by David Evans (Lieutenant Colonel, USMC, retired).
- Reforming the US Army: can be done, must be done – by Don Vandergriff (Major, US Army, retired).
- Careerism and Psychopathy in the US Military – by G. I. Wilson (Colonel, USMC, retired).
- How the US Army decayed. Does anyone want to fix it? – by Douglas Macgregor.
- About the US Army’s leadership problem – by Don Vandergriff.
- “The Core Competence of America’s generals.
- “The Decline of Our Nation’s Generals” by Andrew J. Bacevich (Colonel, US Army, retired) at The American Conservative – “Once powerful titans of policy, today no one knows who they are. Given all the mistakes they’ve made, is it any wonder?”
For More Information
Ideas! For shopping ideas see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about our generals, about our officer corps, about ways to reform the military, and especially these about our officer corps …
- Admiral Rickover’s gift to us: showing that we can reform America’s military.
- A path to desperately needed reform of the US military.
Essential reading for those who want to win, occasionally
See these books by Donald Vandergriff (Major, US Army, retired). See his Wikipedia entry. See his posts, all well-worth reading by those who want to better understand our military and our wars.
The Path to Victory: America’s Army and the Revolution in Human Affairs
Raising the Bar: Creating and Nurturing Adaptability to Deal with the Changing Face of War
Manning the Future Legions of the United States: Finding and Developing Tomorrow’s Centurions
Coming in September: Adopting Mission Command: Developing Leaders for a Superior Command Culture
